73Illustrations: photos#app#goo#gl/CQ3fgLnWxHzty7AX7
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«That was... fun.» — Said the majestic skeleton in the onyx robe, seated comfortably on the obsidian throne.
In the throne room there was an air of total solitude. But despite his phlegmatic nature, Suzuki took no pleasure in this silence. It was oppressive to him; it was as if he were in an abandoned cemetery, where the buried dead no longer hoped for anyone's attention, just waiting for the final oblivion, in the destructive flow of time for all things.
The silence was also aggravated by the lingering sense of waiting for the inevitable. The moment when ten whole years of Momonga's life would fade into oblivion, leaving behind only pleasant memories that would both warm and torment the poor slave of the modern world: warm with nostalgic thoughts of a pleasant pastime; and tormented with the reminder that the old times could never be returned.
«Really fun».
Looking around the vaults of the black columns with a sad gaze, Suzuki indulged in grave thoughts.
"Ten years. I can't even believe that such an incredible amount of time has flown by so quickly." — He sighed to himself.
Inspecting the scarlet banners of his friends that were hung in even rows on either side of the walls, directly across from the face of the Overlord, Momonga mentally relived the most memorable moments associated with his dear comrades.
"It is unbelievable good fortune that from the time of the decline of activity, until today, I have been able to maintain the integrity of the guild." — Suzuki sighs to himself.
It's been two years since the last guild member finally left the game, leaving all of his game possessions in the care of Momonga. For the past two years, he's been literally slaving away at two jobs with no rest and no days off. And if the first somehow still provided him with something, the second took away everything from him: his personal life, money, time for rest and sleep; and as a consequence of that — his health.
Every day he had to spend hours and hours to gather resources and gold for the guild maintenance, alone to participate in hundreds of auto-events, many of which were not even meant for solo passage, as a result of which he often died, losing precious levels and time spent on the resumption of his character to level-cap.
But he had no regrets.
Every hour spent, every yen spent, was worth the moment. Nothing had been wasted.
He could proudly say now that he had managed to preserve his friends legacy to the very end.
Even if they never appreciated it properly.
Catching a glimpse of the banner, in the form of a slightly altered United Nations flag from the 2000s, Mononga plunged into one of the most vivid memories of his life, one that had been given to him by a friend.
Eight years ago.
In the same throne room, two playmates stood opposite each other.
«Blue-san, you haven't allowed anyone into the sixth-floor grounds for three months now,» — Momonga said in a stern voice to the Ent standing across from him, a meter taller than the rather imposing skeleton. — «I realize, of course, that designing a celestial illusion must take a long time, but you won't even let Bellriever-san near the entrance. And he was working with you on the flora of level six, by the way!» — With feigned indignation said the lich.
«Momonga-kun, that's why I came to see you. I finished the project yesterday, but since most of the guild members, including you, were at work, I had to wait until today,» — Blue Planet replied in a calm, soothing voice.
«You do realize, don't you, that there won't be a full meeting of the guild anytime soon, unless there's some sort of global event?»
«I know, Momonga-kun,» — Ent replied sadly. — «And there's only 30 of us so far. I wonder what'll happen when we're a hundred».
«I don't think so,» — Momonga said thoughtfully, rubbing his bony chin. — «I'll tell you in confidence that Tach Me-san wants to put it to a vote to limit the guild to fifty members. Still, Ainz Oal Gone was meant to be a cozy guild with a distinctive atmosphere».
It's hard to imagine a cozy atmosphere in those mega guilds with thousands of members, where even the guildmaster doesn't remember who and when he took them.
«That's why I joined your guild," Blue Planet said, choosing the smiley face on the emotion bar.»
Momonga answered with a smiley face and got right to the point.
«What about the sky?»
An hour later.
«I'm awake now, aren't I?» — The three clawed, gigantic crab-like player exclaimed in astonishment.
«My brother will be jealous that I saw such beauty without him!» — In a thin voice, loudly sang the pink pile of stuffing.
«It's beautiful...» — The paladin insectoid in shining armor exhaled uncompromisingly.
While everyone was loudly marveling at his guild mate's impeccable work, Momonga was silently admiring the incredible sight before his eyes.
A myriad of bright stars, of every possible color and size, scattered across the blackness of the sky, like jewels scattered across the impenetrable darkness as on a jeweler's table, illuminating the eyes of anyone looking at them.
Each star, from time to time, literally for a brief moment, emitted a brighter light, creating the illusion that the celestial luminaries, small from such a distance, playfully winked at their observers, showing that they were never meant to reach their sizzling beauty.
A special adornment to the celestial canvas, were the various nebulae that were scattered here and there across the starry sky. They looked as if an artist had dabbed a wet brush across the starry canvas, which in no way spoiled, but only improved, the whole cosmic picture.
He had never seen such a beautiful night sky before.
Though he never told anyone this, his late mother, Hitoshi, had always dreamed of seeing such a sky. Not in pictures on the Internet, but live, with her own eyes, to see the clear, untainted firmament, untainted by emissions from factories and city lights. Listening to the stories his dear mother told him about the times before the total industrial era, which she in turn had learned from her grandmother, Satoru eventually adopted the dream from his mother himself.
A single tear rolled down Satoru's face, past the virtual reality connection helmet.
Although partially, Blue-san managed to fulfill his mother's dream, for which he will be eternally grateful
Satoru, with nostalgic sadness, remembered that moment.
Fingering his bony fingers over the guild's golden staff, Momonga's gaze fell squarely on the succubus standing at his throne.
A pretty, slightly pale face stared at him with its empty, amber eyes with a vertical pupil.
As a professional writer, Tabula was always very diligent about writing out character and backstory for his non-writers. He could spend months pondering various plots, constantly carrying around a huge leather notebook that was given to all players as a starter item.
"He must be the only player in all of Yggdrasil who needed to expand his notebook to ten thousand more pages." — Momonga laughed to himself, remembering Tabula asking everyone in the guild for a way to increase the capacity of the starter notebook.
"Maybe I shouldn't have messed with Tabula-kun's settings after all." — Reluctantly, Satoru thought. — "Now, remembering how much effort he put into creating and prescribing Albedo... How could I have defamed her so much with my selfishness!" — «Momonga exclaimed shamefully to himself.»
Satoru began to blame himself, for such an impulsive, and selfish to endure the pangs of shame that had so swiftly piled on his mind, Momonga rushed to the nepis' editing console once more.
A thin, bony finger fell on the interface panel decorated with ancient monograms, right on the "erase" button.
The embarrassing line of compromising text instantly disappeared from the description panel, leaving behind only a blinking vertical bar of text input.
A skeletal hand hovered over the holographic keyboard in indecisive tension.
No matter how hard Momonga tried, there was no way he could bring himself to return Albedo to her original settings.
The innocent, angelic image of a young succubus whose appearance would be more like an illustration of the words "purity," and "chastity," with the phrase, "she's a whore," just wouldn't fit in his mind.
"Eh, I wish I hadn't touched anything at all..." — Satoru sadly exhaled.
So, as a compromise, he decided to just leave everything as it was, so as not to ruin Tabula's legacy even more. Even if it would leave a blank test line, which would annoy a perfectionist like Momonga by its mere existence.
But better that than regretting this so-called "little prank" for the rest of her life.
«Eh...» — the skeleton sighed heavily with his ephemeral lungs.
"Only ten minutes until the servers close..." — Satoru thought, glancing at the dial on the electronic clock located in the upper right corner of the interface. — «Maybe I can still make it...?» — Momonga whispered hopefully.
On the eve of the closing of Yggdrasil, many players who have not yet completely lost interest and left the game, began to do what a few years earlier it would not even occur to them — put up for auction, literally for next to nothing, thousands of items of varying degrees of rarity, ranging from the legendary, and even world items.
Momonga almost spat blood when he saw the blasphemy with his own eyes when he went to the auction yesterday. But once he calmed down, the collector's uncontrollable greed briefly took hold of him, and he began frantically buying up all the objects that had ever interested him in one way or another.
He only stopped when the balance on his account finally hit rock bottom and he had to yank himself away from donat, basically a game that was practically dead.
"There's no point in buying up the whole auction. After all, I won't have time to experience all these items before closing anyway." — This was the main argument that kept him from acting recklessly.
With the fifty thousand yen left in his account, he had managed to buy: eight legendary items, twelve divine items, and even the one world item that was the only one on sale, which he bought in the first place.
And now, when he finally remembered all these sudden purchases, he had, as luck would have it, only ten minutes to test the items he had bought.
"What a shame I was so late coming to the auction." — Satoru lamented. — "Because of another reprimand from my superiors, I completely forgot about my recent purchases. How could I have only remembered about them now?" — Exclaiming mentally.
"Okay, inhale... Exhale." — Momonga muttered to himself. — "Better late than never, after all." — He reasoned wisely.
"I don't think it would be a good idea to do this on guild property." — Momonga muttered mentally, scratching the back of his bony head behind the hood of his cloak. "And I wanted to spend my last moments with Nazaric, who had become a second home for many years..."
Faced with a rather difficult choice, Momonga still decided on the first option, and so he moved immediately to the first floor, with the help of Ainz Wal Goon's ring.
"I might still make it back before closing time. So it's worth it to start testing as soon as possible." — Satoru thought, before opening a portal away from the guild's anti-teleport barriers. Though he didn't restrict the guild members themselves in any way, the habit of forbidding teleportation using gates within the guild, without a valid reason, had been left over from Nazaric's days of activity.
Once out in the foul swamps of Helheim, Momonga used a spell called "Great Intimidation" that drove all enemy mobs of up to seventy levels out of the area the caster had designated. The exception, of course, was the undead, who were completely immune to such effects.
Turning his face toward the already boring desert meadows of Helheim, which looked so similar to the real world in their grayness and lifelessness, Momonga made a characteristic hand gesture to open his inventory, pulling out the first item he had purchased.
"I think I should skip the legendary items and start with the divine ones right away. Otherwise, I'm afraid I don't have enough time for everything." — Concluded Momonga, pulling out a gold gauntlet decorated with five jewels from his inventory.
そのクソ翻訳機をオフにする
«Eh, too bad we only met now; at the very end...» — Satoru held out, looking at the silver ring with the elegant lightning bolt ring that sat squarely on the ring finger of his right hand.
Momonga had heard of this ring once before. Tinia's ring, is a divine protective type equipment that reflects any magical attack, up to level nine, back to the attacker.
If it weren't for the thirty-second cooldown, this ring could, with a bit of a stretch, be dubbed a world item.
The description indicated that, according to legend, part of the power of the guardian lightning, which was part of the set of eleven lightning bolts of the Etruscan god Tinus, was sealed in the ring.
As Momonga admired the ring once more, he noticed that there was only one minute left before the servers closed.
«Shit,» — Momonga cursed, "I guess I'm not destined to experience all my acquisitions." — He thought to himself in frustration.
In all the time he had left, he had only had time to examine six of the twelve he had purchased at the auction. And that's not counting the legendary, items.
"Basically, I can still make it..." — He stretched out. — "But then, the end of the game I'll have to meet in the middle of Helheim's Wasteland."
After standing there indecisively for a few seconds, Momonga reached his bony hand straight for the inventory opening icon.
"There's no time for long deliberation." — Claimed Satoru — "If I don't decide on something now, then I won't have either."
After Momonga chose the right box, the right item moved into his hand.
«Here we meet again...» — Momonga muttered in his ear, peering at the onyx ring through the eyes of his game avatar.
Despite its uncomplicated design, compared to other world items, in the form of a black snake swallowing its tail — this ring gave its wearer some rather cheater advantages. Both in Momonga's opinion and in the opinion of the other players.
It was Ouroboros. The strongest single item in all of Yggdrasil.
And its power is such that when you activate the ring, you can send a request to the developers to grant any wish that doesn't affect the basic mechanics of the game.
Momonga has already had to personally encounter the power of this ring. When Yggdrasil was just beginning to gain popularity, his guild almost managed to completely monopolize the mining of rare minerals throughout Helheim. But a rival guild prevented such an outcome by using Ouroboros to completely wipe out
Momonga had already had to deal personally with the power of this ring. When Yggdrasil was just beginning to gain popularity, his guild almost managed to completely monopolize the mining of rare minerals throughout Helheim. But a rival guild prevented such an outcome by using Ouroboros to completely erase Ainz Oal Gone's presence from the world itself for a month.
In fact, their guild, along with all of its members, had been in a month—long ban, which had resulted in a massive loss, moving from the top twelfth place to twenty—ninth.
"This unfortunate incident could have been avoided if we had owned at least one world subject at the time." — Satoru sighed. — "But, what's done cannot be undone. Or rather, not done?" — He hummed.
Forty seconds.
Momonga had to interrupt his thinking again, since there was only so much time left.
"What should I wish for?" — Momonga pondered. — "Oh, and does it make sense? It's naive to assume that the developers will delay server closures to fulfill my request."
Thirty-five seconds.
"They probably won't even read my request anymore. And anyway, it's quite possible that the developers have already had time to close the subject mail for requests." — Momonga reasoned.
Twenty-five seconds.
"So did I stay for nothing?" — Satoru exhaled doomfully. — "I could have snuggled up on the Throne of Kings by now, and waited quietly for closure. But no, instead I'm standing in the middle of the fucking desert, staring at this useless ring!" — Momonga cursed irritably.
Twenty seconds.
Spitting in annoyance, Satoru calmed down slightly, and shifted his gaze back to the black ring.
"Okay, then again, what's done can't be undone. I'd better think about what I can wish for before the clock strikes midnight." — Momonga pondered. "It might go unheeded, and my request would be comparable to sending a Christmas letter to Santa Claus, but no one would reproach me for having a little faith in miracles, would they?" — Mumbled Satoru under his breath.
Fifteen seconds.
"And what should I wish for? Immortality? To live forever in a dying world without the possibility of dying? No, that sounds more like a curse. Then what, money? That would be nice, but I don't think the I.R.S. will believe my magic ring stories. — Momonga grinned.
Ten seconds.
«How about wishing for Yggdrasil 2?» — Satoru dreamily stretched out — "An updated Iggdrasil on a modern engine, the one with maximum detail, also voiced by an NPC artificial intelligence... Buku-Buku Chagama would definitely kill me for thinking that." — Satoru thought cheerfully.
Chagama-chan often complained to her co—guildmates about artificial intelligence. More specifically, about the virtual seiyu who quite often stole her job as a voice actor. So for such thoughts, she would definitely take serious offense to Momonga, calling him a traitor. Albeit not for long, in view of her childish nature.
"How long has it been since we've seen each other? Three years?" — Satoru thought to himself. — How quickly time flies... — He sighed sadly.
Five seconds.
"I think I know what to wish for." — Momonga stretched out in his mind.
Equipping the world object Ouroboros on the index finger of his right hand, Momonga spun it around his marble bone exactly three times clockwise, fulfilling one of the necessary conditions for activation.
Four seconds.
The ring activation animation went on, with the snake lifting its eyelids, exposing its glowing ruby eyes.
Raising his right hand to his face, for dramatic effect — Momonga himself increased the intensity of the glow of his crimson lights in his eye sockets, though he understood the pointlessness of this action.
Three seconds.
«In the name of the nine worlds of Yggdrasil,» — Momonga said clearly, the beginning of the key phrase.
Two seconds.
«I, Momonga, address the supreme gods of creation.»
As he finished pleasing the egos of the game's developers, Momonga dramatically closed his eyes, causing the lights in his eye sockets to shrink to a faintly visible gleam.
One second.
«May my Great Adventure never end.»
As he exhaled these words, Momonga slowly opened his eyes, facing a bright green glow that completely obscured his eyes.